"GRAND RAPIDS – A gleaming bus pulls to a stop along a mostly barren street south of Grand Rapids.
As the bus pulls away, the scene morphs and the bus is now surrounded by millions of dollars in development ‒ sprouting as if by magic.
Such was the promise in this animated promotional video for a $35 million transit route called the Silver Line, launched with great fanfare in 2014.
Backers said it would transform a nearly 10-mile stretch of South Division Avenue from downtown Grand Rapids to the suburbs with dedicated lanes for hybrid electric buses. Commuters would trade in their cars. It would return $160 million in new development.
Four years later, most of South Division is virtually the same ‒ and daily rides are about half what was predicted.
Across the state in Detroit, the QLine, a $140-million electric streetcar line that connects downtown to Midtown along Woodward Avenue, attracted less than half of its projected riders for several months its first year.
It’s been beset by delays, crashes and falling popularity.
And in Lansing, transit officials pulled the plug last year on a controversial $133 million bus rapid transit (BRT) line when expected federal funds dried up.
Nearly $6 million in state and federal funds had already been invested ‒ in a project whose backers also forecast dramatic development benefits..."Read all.
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